But what’s the difference between a laptop PC and a notebook PC?  And what is a netbook?  There doesn’t appear to be any official descriptions, so I’ve come up with my own:

Laptop – A portable PC with all the capabilities and power of a desktop, but small enough to use while on your lap, weight doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Notebook – Similar to a Laptop PC, but thinner and lighter, generally less than 6 lbs.

Netbook – Smaller and less capable than a Notebook PC, optimized for Internet usage (hence the “Net” in Netbook). Netbooks usually do not have an optical drive and weigh in at 2-3 lbs.

Count me as a netbook fan.  I’ve got some great uses:

• they’re just the right size for taking into the kitchen for menu reference
• the exceptional battery life makes them perfect for travel when you might not be near AC power
• for connecting wirelessly to your desktop PC and acting as a remote desktop

GigaOM talks about Notebooks vs Netbooks

/Steve

Typically, Wi-Fi works in what is known as Infrastructure mode, where each device communicates through an access point to other devices. Bluetooth technology eliminates the need for this intermediary device and allows devices to communicate directly with each other.

Bluetooth may have one advantage in that it has very low power requirements, but the speed and range of Wi-Fi Direct will make for some interesting applications. I’m looking forward to using wireless stereo headphones all the way out into the garage.

• Wi-Fi Basics
• Bluetooth Basics
• Further Wi-Fi Direct discussions

/Steve

The outer sheath of CAT5 cable is generally blue, but can be any color, “CAT5″ will be printed on the outer sheathing to indicate its certification. Each separate wire inside is also sheathed in plastic with a standard color scheme.

The technology behind this standard is referred to as “unshielded twisted pair” in that a pair of unshielded wires are twisted together to cancel out electromagnetic interference.

There are 4 different color pairs and in order to minimise crosstalk interference, the interval between the twists of each color pair is slightly different.

CAT5 Table

The cable is terminated in either the T568A scheme or the T568B scheme. Canada uses the T568A standard and the United States commonly uses T568B scheme. It really doesn’t make any difference which is used as long as you use only one of the standards so all connections are the same at your location to avoid confusion and potential problems. Mixed cable types should not be connected in series as the impedance per pair differs slightly and may cause signal degradation.

• How-to install connectors on CAT5 cable

History

Work began on developing a telecommunications cabling standard in 1985. In 1987, equipment was being manufactured that could use twisted pair telephone cable for data communication, and in 1991, the first standard was published for CAT3 cabling, which is what is still used for most voice (telephone) communications today. The standards for CAT4 and CAT5 were released later in 1991. It wasn’t until 2001 that the standard for CAT5e was released.

• Cat 1: Currently not recognized by TIA/EIA. Previously used for POTS (plain old telephone system) telephone communications, ISDN and doorbell wiring.
• Cat 2: Currently not recognized by TIA/EIA. Previously was frequently used on 4 Mbit/s token ring networks.
• Cat 3: Currently defined in TIA/EIA-568-B, used for data networks using frequencies up to 16 MHz. Historically popular for 10 Mbit/s Ethernet networks.
• Cat 4: Currently not recognized by TIA/EIA but originally defined in TIA/EIA-568-A. Defined up to 20 MHz, and was frequently used on 16 Mbit/s token ring networks.
• Cat 5: Currently not recognized by TIA/EIA but originally defined in TIA/EIA-568-A. Defined up to 100 MHz, and was frequently used on 100 Mbit/s Ethernet networks. May be unsuitable for 1000BASE-T gigabit ethernet.
• Cat 5e: Currently defined in TIA/EIA-568-B. Defined up to 100 MHz, and is frequently used for both 100 Mbit/s and 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet networks.
• Cat 6: Currently defined in TIA/EIA-568-B. Defined of up to 250 MHz, more than double category 5 and 5e.
• Cat 6a: Currently defined in ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-10. Provides performance of up to 500 MHz, double that of category 6. Suitable for 10GBase-T.
• Cat 7: An informal name applied to ISO/IEC 11801 Class F cabling. This standard specifies four individually-shielded pairs (STP) inside an overall shield. Defined up to 600 MHz.
• Cat 7a: An informal name applied to Amendment 1 of ISO/IEC 11801 Class F cabling. Defined up to 1000 MHz.

Final Word

For your home network where the cables are not being installed in the walls, CAT5e is the way to go unless all of your network components are rated for Gigabit speeds. If they are, you may see the benefit of using CAT6 cables. If you are completely wiring or re-wiring your home, you should go with CAT6 cable to make sure that it will meet your future performance needs.

/steve

The routers we use in our home networks are sometimes referred to as “residential gateways” and are frequently used to connect to a broadband service over cable or DSL. These routers may also include an internal cable or DSL modem. Residential gateways typically provide firewall functionality through network address translation (NAT) and port address translation. Instead of directly presenting the IP addresses of local computers to the remote network, such a residential gateway makes multiple local computers appear to be a single computer. In terms of home network security, your router is the mask you wear, effectively hiding your real identity from the internet.

This article provides a very simplistic definition of a router. The router performs an amazing amount of work behind the scenes, and is the device that is most responsible for allowing the Internet to work at all.

The term “firewall” originally referred to a physical barricade against the potential spread of fire. In home computing terms, a firewall is a component of a computer or network that acts as a barrier between your home network or PC and the Internet. The firewall blocks unauthorized access while allowing authorized access to your systems. Firewalls can be hardware devices or based in software, both serving the same function.

Firewalls work by inspecting all traffic, both inbound and outbound, and deciding whether the traffic is denied or allowed passage based on a set of pre-established rules or policies. These rules and policies can work in one or more of several methods:

NAT – Network Address Translation
NAT is a method of connecting multiple computers to the Internet (or any other network) using one IP address. NAT allows one IP address, which is shown to the outside world, to refer to many IP addresses internally; one on each PC. NAT automatically provides firewall-style protection without any special set-up because it only allows connections that are originated on the inside network.

Packet Filter
Packet filtering blocks traffic based on a specific Web address (IP address) or type of application (e-mail, ftp, Web, etc.) .

SPI – Stateful Packet Inspection
SPI tracks the data to ensure that the inbound data were requested by the user.

Refer to your router’s user manual for instructions on how to set up your firewall. There are many online resources that discuss some of the more complex issues with firewalls, but for most home network users, the default settings will provide a very high level of security.

Windows comes with a built in software firewall that you can turn off if using a hardware firewall. Microsoft, however, recommends that you leave it on to provide protection if one of the PCs on your home network should become infected and start sending out malicious data.

• Information on the Windows firewall can be found here.

Slave may be too strong a word, but we may be so reliant on our digital devices that our basic behaviors has been permanently changed. We text, we tweet, we chat incessantly on our cellphones in grocery store check-out lines, our kids use calculators for basic math, we eschew libraries for Google, and finally, when was the last time you “looked that up in your Funk and Wagnalls?”

The desire to perform tasks faster, better and more efficiently is pretty basic, and has resulted in some pretty amazing technologies. It’s all good, right?

Technology enables us to be more productive and it can help us focus our talents. But it also allows us to become detached from the world around us – the world where real things live.

Consider the cellphone and its impact on our lives, it goes with you everywhere and you would feel naked without it. This little guy allows you to be a press of a button away from everywhere that you’re not. I love my cellphone, but I don’t want it to rule my life, so I rely on two little bits of technology: Caller ID and Voice Messaging.

Technology to fight technology. Maybe I’m still a slave.

/doc

Some of its features are on display in a recently released video that show its usefulness as an electronic organizer. I have to say that it has a very Apple look to it. The two displays appear as book pages with the spine of the book acting as sort of a clipboard. If this is its primary purpose, I can’t say how I would put it to use.  As a PC, even with advances in handwriting recognition technology, I’m a much faster typist, and would feel burdened without a tactile keyboard.

The code name for this new product is Courier, and understand that it is still in development so nothing is certain, but it still looks extremely appetizing. Further discussion and the just released video clip can be seen at gizmodo.com and crunchgear.com.

/doc

It used to be that you had to subscribe to many trade publications to keep current, but now you can use technology to stay abreast of technology. By using a relatively simple method, you can have the latest articles and opinions delivered to you for free. The method I’m referring to is called RSS which stands for Real Simple Syndication. In its basic form, RSS allows a user to subscribe to a website’s “feed” which makes the content available to a RSS reader. Many national news sites, mainstream online journals and most Blogs have RSS feeds available that anyone can subscribe to. The hardest part for you is to pick a reader and the feeds you want.

• Here is a list of 10 of the best web-based readers

I have tried all of them. I use Google Reader because it is very simple and integrates into my other Google online applications. When I fire up my browser, it automatically loads in a tab as part of my Home Page Tab settings in Internet Explorer 8, so all I have to do is click on the tab and I have new content ready to read.

The best technology-related feeds are:

• EETimes at http://www.eetimes.com/rss/rss-all.jhtml
• CNET at http://news.com.com/2547-1_3-0-5.xml
• MajorGeeks.com at http://www.majorgeeks.com/news.xml
• The How-To Geek at http://feeds.feedburner.com/HowToGeek
• And of course, The PC User Clinic at http://pcuserclinic.com/feed/rss2/

Once you get up and running with a RSS reader, you can search out feeds in your other interest area. You will be surprised at how much content is available.

/doc